macarthur31

Fair point, Jason. In this case of Skubal, there appears to be stated mutual interest, Boras has had a positive working relationship with Hoyer, and given that Jed utilized the deferred money option with Bregman - that's at his disposal as well. If Skubal isn't a Cub, cue up cries and wails of how "Jed can't close," but to your point, Jason, I expect Hoyer will put up a very good proposal for Skubal and that it's really on whether or not Skubal desires to wear Cubbie blue.

How I'm interpreting this: Team Boras turning up the heat in hopes of getting Skubal deal done before lockout. Cubs may be in this, but more as a "call us at the last second, and maybe we can work something out" type energy. I'm not mad at that, just tempering my hopes in Jed going against type and going "all-in" before the flop.

Nice find. I like Sharma and Mooney, but I find that the podcast feels like at times how they're workshopping articles - and since I read their articles consistently, it just feels a bit redundant. (But that's just me - I'm just glad we got 'em writing on the beat.) That aside, this is a very interesting nugget in that the mutual interest is now out in the open. Given that Boras and Hoyer have worked together on "win/win" deals very recently (like Bregman) suggests to me that this has entered "realm of possibility" which is slightly better than "hypothetical." Of course, a counter to this could be - this is just idle chatter to stoke the Skubal derby - but, to your point, Jason, this was already gonna be the main event in this offseason. The wondering is whether or not it gets done before CBA expires -I'm inclined to think so, as I infer that Skubal would want to have peace of mind heading into the lockout, and he doesn't live too far from Sloan Park, right?

If the new CBA maintains status quo, then the threshold will likely be near $250M (as the previous CBA had incremental growth.. $237M in '24, $241M in '25M, $243M in '26, I'd expect it to be the same type of incremental growth if they went this route.). In that scenario, the Cubs would be "repeat offenders", and I'd intuit that in that case Jed would want to "reset" as not to get penalized again. However, if there is a salary cap - is it possible that there won't be a penalty, and instead offering time for teams to get back under the cap by '28? I can't imagine they'd have to force teams to shed that much payroll in such a compressed time period (though that would only apply to fewer teams, so maybe they wouldn't care?). Perhaps its a bit risky, but if Jed anticipated that the owners were for real and that the cap will be installed, why not push it for '27 - in this case, keep payroll at $275M - knowing that in '28 there's more money coming off the books, and a longer runway to move salary. This is pretty much me talking myself into signing Skubal.

Your comment reminded me of something I heard this past season (I think from one of our new pitching acquisitions at the deadline) to the effect of pitchers out there are paying attention to what the Cubs have on defense and would relish the opportunity pitch in front of that. As you note - with a bunch of "pretty good" arms out there, perhaps that (and summer nights at Wrigley) may be enough of a tie breaker to win us those arms at a "reasonable" cost. While it seems like every season, the Cubs have been able to churn out at least one bullpen reclamation project (Lopez, Keller, Rolison, etc); Michael Conforto seems to be the analogue on the position player side. I think he's priced himself into a better contract this year, but I'm wondering how Jed could do that again.

Ran into this reddit post that was referring to an Athletic article from about a week ago, which may also be well-placed Scott Boras propaganda, but offers up the December deadline as the one to watch with regards to the big free agents. While he may not execute the moves that most of us would want (Ohtani, Yamamoto, etc), he does make bold ones (Dansby,Tucker trade, Bregman) as well as opportunistic gambles (Suzuki, Imanaga, Stroman). I, too, am hopeful he'll make at least one big-ticket move ahead of December 1.

Great writeup. It confirms for me that the Cubs have a decent floor at this position. They also appear to save about $12.5M if they let Thielbar and Harvey walk. Man, it'd be nice to convert that plus a chunk to lock down Morejon just to make this as "stress free" as possible walking in to '27, but at least 2 SP, 2 Corner OFs and a Catcher to figure out - I just don't see it. Also, Jed's usual MO is to wait out the market, so unsure how that's gonna work with the impending lockout. My instinct suggests that the elite FA class (which I'd put Morejon in ) wants to get sorted out so they don't have a situation where they're rushing their ramp up in a likely compressed spring training/start of season scenario (at this point, my mental model is that we'll have 150ish games next season). Then again, Scott Boras is really good at playing the waiting game himself (killing time with pun-driven pressers), so Tarik Skubal, Seiya Suzuki, and Ryan Jeffers - pull up a chair.

Agreed. Also, do you intuit that front offices are trying to lock down their staff ahead of the impending lockout, or is this just the usual pace for front office "transfer season." (I.e. yesterday we got the Steve Miller add for International Scouting, and prior to that, Jared Banner to O's)

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/10/cubs-to-retain-both-pitching-coaches.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky I'm not necessarily against retaining Hottovy, but somewhat surprised given how poorly the starting pitching did last season along with the ascendance of Zombro.

I had shared this on another thread (or this one?) - but bringing it back up. Note: I know it's just one guy, but Shota's last 3 years in NPB compared to his 3 years with the Cubs are pretty comparable. (Though, of course, the HR Rate was doubled over here.)

Maybe he'll be too expensive, or perhaps we need to prioritize SP, but can I interest anyone in Teruaki Sato for corner OF?

Aside from the Local TV Deal money, I'd imagine that getting the salary cap installed would go a long way towards getting clearer franchise valuations. MLB just increased the cap for single private equity investment up to 20% (though it can't exceed the owner's controlling stake) - so perhaps higher franchise valuations now ups the potential moolah gained through P/E coming in. Getting this done also paves the way for expansion to get to 32 total teams - (16 in AL/NL, 4 divisions of 4 teams each), and clearer cost certainty may increase the amount of potential owner candidates. All in all, estimated to be roughly $6B in expansion fees to divvy between 30 teams - $200M in one fell swoop sure helps. So, this does become a "intramural" battle within the owners - status quo is good for some (big markets who want to keep pushing their advantage, as well as small markets who are shielded from having to spend up to a floor), but are they willing to trade the known present for a potentially more lucrative future? I have to imagine that trying to align 23/30 is easier than the amount that the MLBPA has to align; and owners will have a bigger warchest to wait the lockout out than the players.

I align with you that the prospect of a salary cap is likely more of a negotiating chip with regards to the reality of executing it - they'd have to open their books, discern what counts as "Baseball Related Income", and the current proposal of floor is like 70% of cap, which is laughable given that NBA/NFL/NHL floors are at 90%. However, I understand that cost certainty is the biggest prize - and namely that through a salary cap they can limit player spending, even as the media deals and other potential revenue streams keep rising. (Or perhaps this prevents rogues like Steve Cohen to uber-invest on payroll; or in the NBA - see Steve Ballmer circumventing the cap to give Kawhi Leonard's camp all the monies). Quick google search says to me that it takes 23/30 owners to pass major league wide rules. The biggest winners in local TV revenue are LAD ($334M), NYM ($217M), LAA ($172M), CHC ($132M) and NYM ($128M). If the average MLB team makes $40-$50M, Manfred just needs to make the case that a centralized media package could net $90M-$100M per team, and he could get enough votes to pass.

From my limited vantage point, I intuit that centralizing the media inventory and landing that next rights deal ASAP is top priority for Manfred. (IIRC, I don't think they need unanimous owners vote to get that done.). I agree that the MLBPA isn't going to buckle on salary cap, but the owners will extract enough other items (domestic draft contraction, establish int'l draft, etc) to support more cost certainty. They can live with a "tougher" soft cap, since 80% of owners already treat it like a hard cap - and we will lose a small sliver of games, but likely will play ball by April.

Unsure if its a numbers game, but it seems that every year the "Pitch Lab" scores a reclamation win: Lopez and Miller in '24, Keller in '25, Rolison and Webb in '26. Hoping that Roli and Webb can stay steady, but assuming they can unearth another one, (Or perhaps Maton is that reclamation project?) then I align with bullpen being a lower priority to SP, Corner OF and possibly power upgrade at 1B? (I like Busch, but I wouldn't be surprised if Jed is looking for proven 30 HR power at that spot)